Misguided bailout

FEW homeowners facing foreclosure are as sympathetic as Evalyn Burnie, who could lose her family's modest house in Pacoima where she was born.

Facing high medical bills from cancer, she succumbed to one of the many attractive but dangerous refinancing come-ons from mortgage companies, one that had low payments now and an adjustable rate in the near future.

But then the double-whammy of losing her job during her cancer treatment and her adjustable loan adjusting upward put her in a growing category of homeowners who can't afford their mortgages.

Who couldn't relate to that kind of misfortune?

's sympathetic plight is surely why she was trotted out during an L.A. City Council panel hearing Tuesday to help Councilman Richard Alarcón launch himself as the Pol Who Cares.

Alarc n, like the rest of City Hall, doesn't want to grapple with L.A.'s big problems like traffic congestion, planning and a lack of good jobs, so he jumps on this one for what he sees as the career-building potential.

But Alarcón's volley is misguided. Besides urging state and federal officials to bail out homebuyers, he suggested the city make emergency loans from public funds to people at risk of losing their homes.

How can you justify taking the money of people who are working hard to pay their mortgages and "lending" it to people already so heavily in debt they're facing foreclosure?

In simple terms, you're punishing people who manage their affairs well and rewarding those who don't.

And that's doubly true for the mortgage lenders, as the city's housing department chief Yolanda Chavez pointed out. Burnie Chavez said the proposal would bail out the banks and other lenders that made risky subprime deals in order to reap maximum profits.

Yes, some people are going to lose their houses. Not all, or even many, of them are in such dire straits as Burnie. And every single one of them knew, or should have known, the kind of risk they were taking when they signed.

If Alarcón wants to help constituents in this kind of jam, he can use his officeholder account and personal prestige to provide the counseling and support for them to broker a better deal with their mortgage holders.

In the meantime, let's see him and the rest of the council get to work using the taxpayers' dollars to solve the long list of the city's problems.

If L.A. were a better run city, everyone - residents and businesses - would be better off, and that, after all, ought to be the goal of municipal government.